Outthinker

Outthinker Outthinker is a growth strategy consulting firm committed to helping clients solve strategic problems See more at www.outthinker.com.

Outthinker is a growth strategy consulting firm committed to helping businesses, companies and
corporations solve problems that matter. We help managers, teams and business units rapidly reach
strategic clarity through a proprietary strategy process rooted in 10 years of research, facilitation of over
300 strategy sessions, and the training of over 5,000 executives. Our approach the
Outthinker
Process is
captured in our most recent book, "Outthink the Competition" (John Wiley) and draws on
three other business strategy books we have published. We serve midmarket
and Fortune 500
companies and corporations including Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle/Purina, Citibank, and
others.

09/07/2026

Most problem statements are solutions wearing a disguise.

“Build a better wheelchair” already traps the team inside one product category. A stronger problem statement describes the job to be done: help people travel long distances over rough roads, move indoors, and repair the device easily.

That shift creates room for multiple answers—and gives a team something concrete against which to test them.

Before asking whether an idea is innovative, ask a harder question: have we defined the problem without quietly deciding the solution first?

“You have to define the problem independent of the solution.”
Save this before your next problem-framing session.

Watch the full episode → https://youtu.be/pWzUJ_mRb3s?si=d09wkl0ArS616Ib3

09/06/2026

Uber did not invent GPS. It did not invent digital payments. Its breakthrough came from assembling existing capabilities around a newly understood customer need.

Vijay Govindarajan calls this “raiding the parts bin”: searching for technologies, components, and ideas that already satisfy part of the design requirements—then concentrating invention only where a genuine gap remains.

This is not less innovative. It is more disciplined.

The goal is not to prove that your team can invent everything. The goal is to solve the problem better and faster than anyone else.

“Then you innovate only for that part for which you don't have existing solutions.”

Which part of your problem is actually new — and which part have you been rebuilding from scratch?

Watch the full episode → https://youtu.be/pWzUJ_mRb3s?si=d09wkl0ArS616Ib3

09/05/2026

"You cannot solve the problems of Africa by sitting in the US."

Vijay Govindarajan's mandate for CEOs of US multinationals — three steps:
1. Pick one geographic region that's strategic to you. Africa, India, South America.
2. Build a local team there.
3. Give that team complete freedom — to find the customer problems, find the solutions, and bring them back.
Not a US team solving for a market it's never lived in.
Save this if you're building a global innovation strategy.

Watch the full episode → https://youtu.be/pWzUJ_mRb3s?si=d09wkl0ArS616Ib3

09/04/2026

The glamorous part of innovation is the idea. The valuable part often happens before it.

Teams rush toward brainstorming, prototypes, and solutions because that feels like progress. Vijay Govindarajan argues that the deeper work is slower and less exciting: understanding the customer problem and translating it into precise design requirements.

Only then can you see which existing solutions can be borrowed—and where real invention is actually necessary.

A breakthrough does not rescue a poorly understood problem. It usually exposes it.

“Innovation is very hard, boring, but monotonous work, understanding the customer.”

Send this to the teammate who wants to start with a brainstorm.

Watch the full episode → https://youtu.be/pWzUJ_mRb3s?si=d09wkl0ArS616Ib3

09/03/2026

What if the answer to America’s affordability crisis does not originate in America?

Companies in poorer markets have spent decades designing under constraints that rich countries are only beginning to feel: extreme price sensitivity, limited infrastructure, and customers who cannot absorb another premium feature.

Vijay Govindarajan’s point is not that America must import the finished product. It can import the underlying insight—then redesign, manufacture, and create jobs locally.

Reverse innovation is not about copying a low-cost product. It is about recognizing that another market may already understand your emerging problem better than you do.

“The solution may come from poor countries because affordability is at the heart of how you serve consumers in poor countries.”

Save this one for your next cost conversation.

Watch the full episode → https://youtu.be/pWzUJ_mRb3s?si=d09wkl0ArS616Ib3

09/02/2026

nnovation is not chaos. But it is not a checklist either.

Vijay Govindarajan calls it “disciplined chaos”: enough structure to keep a team from wandering in the dark, but enough freedom for an unexpected solution to emerge.

Many companies make one of two mistakes: they turn innovation into an uncontrolled brainstorm, or they impose a process so rigid that every idea becomes predictable.

The real skill is designing a structure that does not replace creativity—but gives creativity somewhere productive to go.

“Creativity flourishes within structure.”
Without one, he says, you're walking into a dark room with no idea where to start.

Where does your team sit right now — too much structure, or not enough?

Watch the full episode → https://youtu.be/pWzUJ_mRb3s?si=d09wkl0ArS616Ib3

08/15/2026

Technology is getting democratized. Culture can’t be.

Philipp told us why people — not tech — become the only lasting differentiator.

“Those companies that swap out talent, that don’t make that investment, they are the ones that risk becoming commoditized and being sidelined.”

Where does your company actually invest first? 👇

Full episode: outthinker.com/podcast/

08/14/2026

How you exit people tells everyone who stays what you actually value.

Why offboarding is a culture decision, not an HR one:
“We as humans and employees take notice of how we’re being treated.”

The cost shows up as eroded trust, lower engagement, and falling productivity — plus what he calls survivor syndrome among the people left behind.

What did your company get right (or wrong) the last time it let people go? 👇

Full episode — outthinker.com/podcast/

08/13/2026

75% of people job hunting are looking for the same role they just lost.
Most of them won’t find it.

Philipp Muelbert of LHH told us ~60% of the people they support end up making a full career pivot — not by choice, but because the role they had no longer exists anywhere.

Not just at their old company. Across the market.

🎧 Full episode with Philipp — outthinker.com/podcast/

What’s one role you’ve watched quietly disappear in your industry?

08/12/2026

AI transformation fails for one of three reasons.

Philipp Muelbert breaks down what actually separates companies that pull this off:

Skills — do your people have the right technical tools and training?
Culture — are they ready for the discomfort that comes with change?
Organization — are your processes actually rebuilt for it, or just AI-flavored?

Miss one, and the other two don’t matter.

Which one is your company still missing? 👇

Address

1440 Broadway
New York, NY
10022

Telephone

+12123807919

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Outthinker posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Outthinker:

Shortcuts

Share

Category